Vita Nuova: A Dual-Language Edition with Parallel Text - Paperback

by Dante Alighieri (Author), Virginia Jewiss (Translator), Virginia Jewiss (Introduction by)

A totally unique poetic treatise, La Vita Nuova is an elaborately and symbolically patterned selection of Dante's early poems, interspersed with his own incisive prose commentary.

The poems themselves tell the story of his undying love for Beatrice, from their first meeting at a May Day party, through Dante's sufferings and his attempts to conceal the true object of his devotion, to his overwhelming grief at her death, and ending with the transformative vision of her in heaven. These are some of the richest love poems in literature and the movement from self-pitying lament to praise for his beloved's beauty and virtue illustrate the elevating power of love.

This lucid new translation, based on the latest authoritative Italian edition and featuring the Italian on facing pages, captures the ineffable quality of a work that has inspired the likes of Charles Baudelaire, T. S. Eliot, Jorge Luis Borges and Louise Glück.

Author Biography

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italy's greatest poet, was born in Florence and belonged to a noble but impoverished family. His life was divided between political duties and poetry, the most of famous of which was inspired by his meeting with Bice Portinari, whom he called Beatrice, including the Vita Nuova and The Divine Comedy.

Virginia Jewiss (translator/introducer) is a Dante scholar and a translator with a Ph.D. in Italian literature from Yale, where she taught for many years before joining the faculty at Johns Hopkins. Her translations include works by Luigi Pirandello, Roberto Saviano, Melania Mazzucco, Paolo Sorrentino, and Matteo Garrone. She lives in Rome and Washington, DC.